Losing Cards
by SamCyberCat
Summary: The losing streak had lasted a long time and wasn’t showing any signs of letting up. Ryo/Fubuki.


Notes – For the gx_100. Set post-GX, assumes Shou became a Pro League duellist.

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He'd been having a losing streak for a long time. Not all at the same time, because for a while he'd started winning again, but really he looked back on the past few years as being a long losing streak, in multiple senses of the word.

Though not everything that had happened had been bad, his brother Shou was now a Pro League duellist and everyone he knew seemed to be making something of themselves; but as far as his duelling was concerned…

It had started, quite publicly, when Ryo had entered the Pro League and lost to Edo. For a long while after that Ryo couldn't win at all until he took up Monkey's deal and changed who he was. After that he started winning again, and anything else caused through that change he mostly didn't regret.

But the price of winning took its toll, and the methods he'd been using to grab victory certainly hadn't been cheap. He lost to Johan, who was at the time controlled by Yubel, and part of the reason had been because he was physically unable to do it. Then he had to forfeit his match against Makoto because again, he couldn't handle the strain duelling had on him.

In a way he was glad of that, because it had given Shou a chance to prove himself, but it felt like his days of duelling and winning were over.

The Cyberdark deck was gone now, in the hands of the person who rightfully deserved it, and Ryo was left creating a new deck and following in Shou's footsteps. He'd made several by this point, though he hadn't particularly settled on one. Creating decks kept him from being idle, and it almost felt strange to be able to play a card and not experience pain from it.

He practised against one of the few people who it didn't hurt his ego to lose against, and who also was spontaneous enough to come over and duel at any given time, no questions asked.

Fubuki stared across at him from the other end of the table; between them was one of the cheap makeshift duel mats that you could get free at pretty much any promotional event that involved Duel Monsters.

"You could try using something that isn't a machine or a dragon sometime," Fubuki commented, trying to be helpful. He'd had to force himself from saying 'and' instead of 'or' because more often than not Ryo's test decks tended to make several appearances from Cyber Dragon related monsters.

"I should," Ryo agreed, looking at the Cyber Ouroboros in his hand, "But… whenever I try they just seem to turn up. Using them feels right, but at the same time wrong because they do not truly belong to me anymore."

"Shou inherited your Cyberdark monsters, he didn't make you sign a contract saying you can never use anything with 'Cyber' in it's name again," Fubuki pointed out, "Isn't there a whole dojo for teaching people how to use these cards? It's not as if they're limited to one person in the world."

They both knew this was the case; Ryo himself had been a student there.

"I know but…"

But what? The feeling of belonging he used to get from looking at those cards had being replaced with an awkward uncertainty. He couldn't see Duel Spirits, so there was no way he could ask the dragons themselves what they thought, all he had was a vague feeling of how they may have felt about it.

"Not every duellist there used dragons," Ryo corrected, "Samejima had his ogres to start with. And there aren't really enough types of Cyber cards for me to build a deck that doesn't incorporate the ones I've always used."

He sighed. Losing streaks were never ending.

"Maybe not now, but what about new cards that are being released?" Fubuki said optimistically.

"Sure, I can wait a few years." Ryo's tone was sarcastic.

"We do have a friend who's a card designer you know," reminded Fubuki, trying not to roll his eyes.

"If by 'friend' you mean a guy who hung around with my brother and I occasionally said a few words to. You can't exactly ring up a guy and ask him to make cards for you, that's using him and probably cheating," Ryo said firmly.

Fubuki momentarily wondered if it was possible to accuse a card designer of cheating.

"Well… try using something different then, who knows how many decks I've been through," he pointed out.

"I suppose so," said Ryo, eying the pile of unused cards in the corner of his room.

As he did this Fubuki started to text Hayato. Regardless of moral standards if he had to watch Ryo mope any longer he'd never be able to pick up his deck again either.

He was going to get him out of this losing streak if it killed him.


End file.
